Folklore
Yangliuqing woodblock prints are "half-printed and half-painted." First, artists carve a drawing line on a piece of board, then print it on a piece of paper with ink, followed by monochrome treatments and multi-color drawings repeated two or three times. The Yangliuqing prints enjoy unique artistic characteristics due to their woodblock charm and painting style.
I. Sketching: Painters draw a first draft and final draft on rough edge paper or on thin tissue paper as an outline.
II. Plate carving (including ink-line plate and color painting plate): Carvers paste the final draft backwards onto planed pear wood, drawing ink lines and removing the blank parts to complete the ink-line plate. Then, the painters add colors onto pictures on the ink-color board for carvers to make color-painting plates.
III. Printing: Printers press hundreds of pieces of paper onto a fixed position on the painting table, and then put the plate on its left side with its face upward. Printers put the paper onto the uniform colored plate using their left hand and brush the paper with their right hand until all the paper is gone. Then, they work on another color plate, with another plate following. The general order of plate colors is yellow, blue (blue and yellow make green), purple, orange, red and sometimes gold powder in the end.
IV. Color painting: After finishing the color painting plate, the painters will start "making up" and filling up the blanks, that is to coat the head and face with rouge, draw eyebrows and eyes, and add color to uncolored clothes and ornaments.
